Kimball Courthouse Settled Long Ago by Courageous

Kimball Courthouse Settled long ago by courageous pioneers, Kimball, Minnesota still maintains its small town feel. Today courageous pioneers are fighting to preserve a historic showpiece, the traditional City Hall. The 92-year-old City Hall stands proudly in the middle of downtown representing Kimball's heritage. Many small towns are losing their historic buildings to age and lack of the building's ability to meet the community's needs. In fact, the Kimball building is starting to deteriorate and its fate lies in the hands of the people.

Following is an analysis of the exterior and interior of the building. The Village of Kimball Prairie broke ground on their new City Hall in 1908. It was a big decision to spend $6,490 for the building but they knew it would last at least a hundred years. They wanted the City Hall to become the town's historic anchor. Today the City Hall sits on top of a small rise in downtown Kimball as one of the last of its kind. The building has had many purposes over the years.

In addition to housing the city offices, it has also been used as a gymnasium and a theatre. It has also housed fire engines and snowplows. Today, the building meets the city's needs by housing the library, city offices, meeting space and additional rental space. However, the city is starting to outgrow the facility and is exploring ways to adapt the building to their future needs. Part of their plans include renovating both the inside and outside of the building.

Exterior Analysis The Kimball building is a 40 ft by 80 ft wide two story brick structure with wonderful architectural details including ceiling to floor windows, tin interior ceilings, keystone bricks used above the exterior windows, carriage doors in the rear and a bell tower on top that use to call the fire fighters. The front of the building faces the town's main street. The front of the first floor has three doors and four windows with four steps going up to the doors.

The middle door is the main entrance and it stands out due to the door being larger than the rest and the large mantel over the door. The windows at this level are traditional double-hung windows. The front of the second floor has three arched windows with diamond shaped grills. Two double hung windows flank the arched windows and they also have diamond shaped grills.

All of the front windows on the second story have the keystone brick in another color with additional bricks following the shape of the arch around the window. Above the second story is a half false story. It gives the building an appearance of being larger than it really is. The top of the half story has a large stone mantle to give it definition. On the roof, at the front of the building, is a bell tower.

The tower was used many years ago to call the volunteer fire fighters. Each side of the building has seven floor to ceiling windows with four double hung windows towards the front of the building. The double hung windows are in place for the city offices and rental offices upstairs. The site the building is located on slopes from the front towards the back an entire story.

Therefore, when you stand at the rear of the building, the basement becomes another story and the building appears to be a three-story structure. The back also has a half false story at the top. The back is made up of large garage doors that open into the area used to store the city vehicles. However, the brick that used to outline the original arched carriage doors is still there. The city is exploring restoring the back with copies of the carriage doors.

Although the building has wonderful features, it also has some structural issues. According to Keshwar Ramdular from Larson Engineering in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, the exterior wall has some major cracks that require the entire facade to be tuck-pointed. The main level interior floor is also pulling away from the walls. Both of these could prove to be costly structural problems. However, tearing down the existing building and then constructing a new facility could cost even more.

Interior When you enter the main door, the city clerk's office is on the left and the city library is to the right. Both these rooms have been remodeled either in the 60s or 70s. These rooms have old paneling and aging carpet. Underneath the carpet is the original wood floor. The florescent lighting was added at the same time as the carpet. Walking straight back leads into a large two story open space that makes up 80% of the main floor.

There is an elevated stage running the building's length in this room. Many years ago plays and movies were shown there. In 1917 opera chairs were installed to make attendees more comfortable (the chairs were removed later). The ticket booth and projection closet are all still there intact. Today the space is used for the city council and other meetings. The upstairs space is not large due to the building's two-story great room. There are two office spaces upstairs with each having two rooms.

The upstairs rooms still have their tin ceilings and views out of the arched windows.